Heartworm review

Where would the horror genre be without protagonists suffering from personal trauma? In Heartworm that protagonist is Sam, a young woman who can’t quite get over the death of her beloved grandfather. And so, after falling down an internet rabbit hole, she discovers a rumour about an old house which allows you to make contact with those on the other side. The only problem is, no one has ever returned.

Needless to say, Heartworm finds you making your way to that mysterious old house and venturing inside as Sam. What follows is a tense supernatural adventure which takes heavy inspiration from 90s horror classics such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The visuals are retro-styled, there are fixed camera angles, you need to carefully manage your inventory, and you can even play using tank controls if you wish.

Anyone familiar with the genre, then, will feel right at home with Heartworm. You’ll explore locations, reading notes which flesh out the story and also often provide clues to puzzles blocking your path. You also need to track down a whole host of useful items, consulting your map to make your way through areas which can often feel a little labyrinthine. And of course, throughout it all, there are a variety of hostile entities which you need to combat or avoid.

Thankfully, Heartworm is not a game in which you’re defenceless. Equipped with a camera, you can raise it at any time to take shots of your enemies, eradicating any threat they pose. There are some enemies here that you can’t kill with your camera, however, and some others which are simply best avoided due to how many shots are required to put them down. Your camera has another use, too: you can use its flash whenever you like without consuming film, allowing you to momentarily light up dark environments.

The combat here is basic, as you’d expect, but it gets the job done. In any case, what really makes Heartworm enjoyable to play is exploring its environments and solving puzzles. They range from simply finding and pressing a number of switches dotted around a location, to having to find multiple galleries and remember key words. There’s also a sliding-block puzzle which might drive you mad. Overcoming these truly does feel rewarding.

There are some issues, however. Firstly, I didn’t find Heartworm scary in the slightest. It’s tense, sure, but never terrifying. If you’re playing using modern controls, you’ll also likely have issues with the game’s fixed camera angles, and the boss fights here are a little underwhelming, the first one in particular. I also encountered a bug which resulted in me losing progress on more than one occasion, but hopefully this will be fixed for launch or shortly after.

All in all, though, it’s safe to say that I’ve had a good time with Heartworm. It may not be scary, but its story is intriguing and its gameplay is rewarding. I felt invested in Sam’s journey and wondered how it would end. Taking around five hours or so to complete, there are multiple endings to discover and a rating system, too, so you might want to replay it multiple times. If you’re a classic survival horror fan, it’s well worth checking out.